Does Variation in the Pronunciation of Common French Ballet Terms Systematically Affect Adolescent Dancers’ Perceived Movement Quality and the Accuracy of Their Executed Steps?

Abstract

This pilot investigates whether systematic properties of teachers’ pronunciation of ballet terminology function as motor‑relevant cues for adolescent dancers. Framed narrowly, we ask whether the acoustic realization of a spoken ballet term immediately preceding movement, indexed by a transparent Pronunciation Feature Index (PFI) that aggregates terminal segment class, consonant-vowel balance, and final‑syllable stress, and complemented by ΔPFI (absolute deviation from a native‑French reference), biases (1) audio‑only legato–staccato perception and (2) the quality of a single standardized movement execution. Framed broadly, within routine Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) pedagogy, we ask whether the acoustic properties of terminology operate as effective motor cues that shape timing and segmentation beyond semantics and visual demonstration. Four teachers (two Mandarin‑L1, two Canadian‑English L1) produced ten high‑frequency terms. Four trained dancers (12–18 y) rated perceived staccato-legato from audios and then executed one repetition per audio. Perception showed clear between‑teacher divergence for several items (e.g., balancé, chaînes, développé), consistent with salient acoustic variation. In execution (N = 144 trials; cambré excluded), ΔPFI correlated weakly with movement quality overall (r ≈ −0.04), with a small negative trend for legato steps and near‑zero for staccato. An OLS with interaction estimated a legato slope of ≈ −0.34 per ΔPFI unit and an implied staccato slope of ≈ +0.13. These effects are small at single‑rep granularity. We conclude that pronunciation differences are perceptually meaningful and may modestly bias phrasing for legato‑anchored actions, but strong changes in execution should not be expected from terminology alone.